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Plenty of people (including me) are vegan, healthy, and happy. As omnivores above the poverty line, we can all make conscious and conscientious choices about wh
by whyage 2mo ago
Plenty of people (including me) are vegan, healthy, and happy. As omnivores above the poverty line, we can all make conscious and conscientious choices about what we eat. Going vegan is one of the most effective ways to combat global warming (if you're not in a position to donate large sums of money toward climate change research or mitigation).
- firebot 2mo agoGive it a couple decades. Most 'vegans' stop being vegan well before that. I'll let you Google why they do.
- pastage 2mo agoI am not vegan, will never be, but I have known vegans for more than two decades and they are doing fine. We need to make it easy to make the right choice about food, and one way to do that is to stop making meat meat meat the ONLY cool thing. I am fine with vegans serving me tasty food, they make alternatives easier. If you do not want to be a full time vegan just switch to 3 out 7 days of the week or something like that.
- PxldLtd 2mo agoI gather this is a vague snarky comment loosely implying that vegans don't get enough B12. If so, it's a profoundly ignorant point that shows you don't have any knowledge of a typical vegan diet nowadays.
- expedited123 2mo agoYep, B12 is a solved issue. It's pretty cheap to supplement. I do want to mention that you do also have to look out to get enough of : Omega 3, Calcium, Iodine, Iron, Selenium, Protein. Takes a bit of work at the start to adapt but it's very doable, and it's not like Omnivores don't have comparable deficiencies from not eating enough plants and fruit. Not to mention other problems that come with eating animal products... I only supplement with Omega 3, Vitamin D, B12, Iodine (although sometimes I go for wakame). Have been on a plant-based diet for around 4 years now, feeling healthy.
- orwin 2mo agoI know people who only eat chicken and beef, I'm pretty sure they need iodine way than you do. I don't have the issue, the main animal I eat (besides eggs and cheese) is fish, but I would bet you are healthier than a large part of omnivores.
- firebot 2mo agoReduction to absurdity. Vegans generally have broad deficiencies in key macro and micro nutrients. EPA and DHA, long chain essential omega-3s. You need to eat some fatty fish for this. Algae oil is not the same. You don't get to enjoy the marrow the collagen the joints full of glucosamine and chondroitin but you can buy supplements for all that. Are supplements as good as getting it from a healthy food source? Absolutely not. I think you can play God with your body and see how that fucking around will guarantee you're going to find out.
- aziaziazi 2mo ago> Algae oil is not the same Algae oil is the source of fish oil. Eat want you want, but don't be mad some fellows fetch their nutrients from the raw source instead of multi-staged passage within various other animals. > [EPA and DHA] are originally synthesized by microalgae at the base of the marine food chain, not by the fish. As microalgae move up the food chain, fish acquire the omega-3s and accumulate them in their tissues [note from me: along nasty substances] https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Omega3FattyAcids-HealthProfessional/ https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Omega3FattyAcids-HealthPro...
- softwaredoug 2mo agoA couple of decades of not eating meat is a pretty significant improvement on you your carbon impact :)
- 0x000xca0xfe 2mo agoSame for heavy chain smokers, motorcyclists, obese people and drug users. They are helping our climate a lot by voluntarily shortening their life /s
- e40 2mo agoI know a vegan who’s been doing it for 45 years. That I know of.
- hackernud3s 2mo agoBut someone still has to eat up all those cows before their methane mucks up the environment. And if you're not willing to do your part, that just means the rest of us have to pull double duty.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- DarkNova6 2mo agoThis is bullshit. The vast majority of CO2 is created by energy production. The problem is systemic and blaming other people for their lifestyle choices is neither effective nor helpful and just leads to further division. It's exactly this sort of division that helps fossil companies to destroy the planet and keep making money.
- nDRDY 2mo agoSorry, this is just not correct, even when you ignore the other greenhouse gases and focus on CO2. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-warming-by-gas-and-source https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-warming-by-gas-and...
- dnautics 2mo agoflip the vertical order on that graph, its super misleading.
- xscott 2mo agoActually focusing on CO2, same site: https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector More than 70% of CO2 from energy, less than 6% from ALL livestock.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- whyage 2mo agoIt's more than 6%. Cows eat a lot, so people cut forests to grow more feed (like in the Amazon). Deforestation contribute to global warming, not to mention the biodiversity damage.
- xscott 2mo agoHow much more than 6 percent? Support your claim with reputable sources. If your arguments aren't believable, I'm buying extra steak this evening.
- Buxato 2mo agoTake a look to a soybean plantation for example, biodiversity totally destroyed. Also, are you doing a physical main work?
- IsTom 2mo agoThe point is that you need multiple plantations like this to make enough feed for the cows to make equivalent calories/proteins.
- Kichererbsen 2mo agoDisclaimer: Not a vegan myself. You do realize those soybean plantations are not for human consumption, right? And that that's what is factored into the quoted loss of biodiversity?
- firebot 2mo ago[flagged]
- whyage 2mo agoDo you vote? Why?
- softwaredoug 2mo agoI would say it’s important to emphasize people don’t need to go complete vegan. Reducing consumption of animal products can be more realistic for most people.
- BoingBoomTschak 2mo ago[flagged]
- softwaredoug 2mo agoWhy do people take this stuff so personally? Eat meat. Don't eat meat. Do whatever you want. It's somewhat revealing to me that whenever this comes up people feel personally attacked by people trying to make ethical choices using data. Why is it so threatening to you? IMO we should share data and let people make their own choices.
- Teever 2mo agoI think they have these kinds of visceral responses because they’re experiencing cognitive dissonance regarding the ethical treatment of animals when the issue is raised by vegans. Deep down they know that how we collectively treat animals is abhorrent and shameful and they see their role in it and it frustrates them that they won’t change their behaviour when they’re faced with the overwhelming proof that it is possible to do in the form of someone else doing so. It’s a crab bucket mentality coming from a place of shame. I say this as an omnivore who isn’t in so much denial about my role in animal suffering and ecological destruction.
- arbitrary_name 2mo agopoint on the doll where the vegan touched you.
- ZeroGravitas 2mo agoSpecifically red meat and dairy are the big wins to cut out if you want to reducing climate damage but aren't ready to completely quit meat. And the headline suggests this applies to biodiversity damage too. Probably applies for health benefits too.
- goda90 2mo ago> As omnivores above the poverty line, we can all make conscious and conscientious choices about what we eat. This being a forum of mostly tech workers, many of us can afford to choose more sustainable animal products and support agriculture that promotes biodiversity and carbon sequestration too. If you don't want to give animal products up, then look for sources that engage in regenerative agriculture practices. They tend to be the most humane ways to raise animals as well. In the end, demand for meat, eggs, and dairy is never going to disappear. Maybe someday lab grown alternatives can be molecularly and structurally equivalent. But until then the most effective change we can make collectively is to change government incentives to farmers so they choose better practices.
- graemep 2mo agoA lot of vegans eat fake meat and dairy which shares many of the environmental problems of meat, such as needing a lot of inputs so a lot of plant material relative to the final product.. It also adds energy use, transport, packaging etc. There are also environmentally beneficial meats. So much so that when rewilding we sometimes need to add the same animals back (as is happening in Scotland - rewilders are breeding cattle that look like wild ones to make it "natural"). In the UK you can buy venison from wild animals that need to be culled to to preserve the environment.
- e40 2mo agoBy definition vegans don’t eat dairy. Fake meat is just tofu with preparation.
- graemep 2mo ago> y definition vegans don’t eat dairy. They eat fake fairy instead. > Fake meat is just tofu with preparation. Its made from a variety of things, and the the health and environmental effects will vary a lot.
- camel-cdr 2mo agoI wonder what substitute the average vegan consumes. I often see these vegan meat substitute products as an on-ramp and people who are vegan for longer tend to use other things in their staple dishes.
- softwaredoug 2mo agoBeyond Meat is one such product, and it generates a lot fewer greenhouse emissions. > Based on a comparative assessment of the current Beyond Burger production system with the 2017 beef LCA by Thoma et al, the Beyond Burger generates 90% less greenhouse gas emissions, requires 46% less energy, has >99% less impact on water scarcity and 93% less impact on land use than a ¼ pound of U.S. beef. https://css.umich.edu/publications/research-publications/beyond-meats-beyond-burger-life-cycle-assessment-detailed?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://css.umich.edu/publications/research-publications/bey...
- deeplytroubled 2mo ago[dead]
- belorn 2mo agoPlease provide the research that say that going vegan is one of the most effective ways to combat global warming. According to a Swedish study publish a few years ago (https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541), going vegan is mid-tier in combating global warming. Who you buy your electric from has a larger impact on the environment than going Vegan, as does if/what car you own and naturally what kind of trips and vacations you do. A single trip with an airplane can have a bigger impact on global warming than all the meat they eat through their whole life.
- Martinussen 2mo agoThis seems to say that an individual going vegan would save an entire transatlantic (!) flight for their footprint every single year, and recommends it as one of the four most effective things one can do?
- belorn 2mo agoI read the study wrong. A single transatlantic trip produce the same amount of emissions as eating meat for two full years. 1.6 tons for a flight vs 0.8 tons for a eating meat for a whole year.
- widgets 2mo agoYour linked research has 'Eat a plant-based diet' as a High Impact Action, not a Moderate Impact Action.
- belorn 2mo agoTechnically the lowest of the high impact actions. Combine one Moderate Impact Action with a part of a second Moderate Impact Action and you get more than a plant-based diet, or just do one of the better High Impact Action.
- widgets 2mo agoSure, if you assume the low end of the range provided for a plant-based diet's impact. You'd need to combine every Moderate Impact Action to reach the high end of the range. You asked for evidence that a plant-based diet is one of the most effective ways. You found it.
- bryanlarsen 2mo agoPlowing pasture-land to grow soybeans is likely to reduce bio-diversity even more than running cattle on that land. A lot of pasture land is marginal land where a plow is very destructive, and is often a lot closer to the pre-human ecology where the land was grazed by large mammals. Your primary point still stands -- eating tofu likely has a lower ecological impact than eating beef, but the trade-off isn't obvious, and second order effects can be significant. If you stop grazing cattle on land, the owner of that land is going to find another use for the land to profit from it. Some of those uses are going to be better for bio-diversity, some are going to be worse. It's highly unlikely to become parkland. So will going vegan reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase bio-diversity? Probably, but not certainly. This uncertainty shouldn't dissuade people from acting on "probably" though.
- nozzlegear 2mo agoI started out doing a "meatless Monday," and have now been vegetarian for 7 or 8 years. For someone who grew up in rural Iowa, always had a freezer full of steak and ground beef from the cows my father raised and butchered, and avoided most vegetables, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.